63 Comments

Corky

Just heard an interesting discussion on the radio regarding electric cars, similar to what Alan Wilkinson and I had a while back.

The radio host took Alan’s view that most people would be able to charge their cars at home. The host was also hoping by the time EV’s are common place, people will have the ability to generate some of their own electricity.

A couple of texters took my view. That being the huge drain on our national grid and the huge bottle necks of cars waiting to recharge at public charge stations. At the moment, half an hour is the average ‘quick charge” time for current vehicles. I’m sure technology will bring that time down to ten minutes. Ultimately, an EV using its own motion to recharge will make other methods obsolete.

It’s interesting to note, one of the original owners/ technicians of Tesla Cars who sold his stake in the company, see’s no future for the electric car. He believes trucks and passenger vehicles run by local authorities is where EV technology will come into its own.

David

There needs to be a step change in battery storage I think before the EV dream is realized but the Hybrid model where a small petrol engine re-charges the batteries is I think the best model.
The other thing that oft gets overlooked is the environmental cost of manufacturing batteries and there seems little point while coal generates the electricity for the plug in models when you compare the effeciency and low emissions from the modern small car.
I like the concept and am looking at a new range rover who are putting out a hybrid version but its still a while away.

David

And yet the fares remain the same, its a funny old business in NZ where the saving of money from environmental gains dont get passed on so demand doesnt increase. Because of the eye watering costs of a taxi and its really galling when you are in a Prius taxi I will chose not drink and take my 6 cylinder 3.0 litre diesel out instead as I find myself more able to enjoy a night out if I havent been robbed on the way to it.
Lost environmental gains from technological progress.

Conspiratoor

Laughing all the way to the bank …until the batteries need replacing and they discover depreciation has dealt a death blow to their beloved ev …which now has a market value less than the cost of 5,000 fresh 18650s

Gezza

Conspiratoor

I took the old envelope out and scratched a few rough calcs. Take a comparative fossil vehicle say a Suzuki alto gl and its 100km for a miserly 4.66l. At wellys exorbitant fuel costs that is approx $8.93 of 91 octane. Now interrogate monsieur Google for return distance tawa to plimmerton, 5 days a week and that is approx. 109.34kms. My fossil car will cost me a mere $9.82 for the same distance travelled. They don’t say where the sports day occurs, could be a weekly game of ping pong with the neighbour, or it could be a weekend on the piste. However my trusty fossil has another 1.78kms in it before it hits the $10 barrier set by the ev zealot

Then we throw in the ev syndrome ‘range anxiety’ and inability to use the demister for more than 7 minutes …and the case is closed for moi

Gezza

duperez

A lot of words are said about road safety and there are all sorts of theories about how to improve safety. Vehicles though are great as toys for fun as shown in the Herald today:

“The female driver lost control on an S-bend crashed through a fence, rolled, and came to rest in a paddock.
The car surfer suffered critical head and other injuries and was airlifted directly to Auckland City Hospital by the Northland Rescue Helicopter.

Emergency services were called to a serious motorcycle accident in Taipa. The 18-year-old was doing wheelies when he fell and hit his head on a concrete boat ramp. He was not wearing a helmet.”

Kitty Catkin

A boy here was killed a few years ago when he fell from a car that he was using for urban surfing. He had never done it before, but he and friends were trying to take their minds off the death of the friend whose funeral they had just attended. A nurse lived in the street and came to help, but nothing could be done. Days later,or maybe even a day later, she was also killed in a car accident.

I don’t remember urban surfing being done when I was a teenager-but if it had been thought of, it would have been done.

Corky

Blazer

I did like this bit…’“I usually paint giant vaginas, pussies and cunts,” she said, “and since I had just finished one on the side of a five-storey building, I felt like a dick was needed. The wall space on Broome was a perfect fit for it. To paraphrase [the artist] Judith Bernstein, if a dick can go into a woman, it can go up on a wall.”

Kitty Catkin

I saw the painting-it’s grotesque rather than indecent, like an over-cooked saveloy. Ridiculous. But public buildings are not the place for giant paintings of genitalia. If a man did these paintingsm we’d never hear the end of it.

Corky

See, it’s not whether these refugees will be an asset to New Zealand, or not. The point is this government knows many New Zealanders don’t want more refugees. What about priorities? They are prepared to spend over a $100.000.000 million on refugees before their own people; just to look good on the world stage and repay liberal pressure groups.

Virtue signalling ( has come to mean) the conspicuous expression of moral values done primarily with the intent of enhancing standing within a social group. (The term was first used in signalling theory, to describe any behavior that could be used to signal virtue—especially piety among the religious.)

Mefrostate

Right, that’s not too far off from the definition I was working with. Few problems I have with it.

First, isn’t politics literally all about “enhancing standing within a social group”, except where that social group is the entire country, and the goal is to enhance standing enough to lead a government? By that definition literally all politicians are always virtue signalling.

Second, so what, isn’t virtue a good thing? Don’t we want our representatives to do good things, enact good policies, policies desirable to the populous?

Third, I’ve usually seen virtue signalling refer to people who say things to enhance their popularity, but who won’t actually practice what they preach. I’d say this isn’t accurate at all, since she’s literally following through on her professed beliefs right now (to the extent that is politically achievable).

Fourth, it seems cheeky to assume you know Ardern’s inner intent behind her politik. To allege that she’s purely doing it to boost her social standing requires you to assume she doesn’t genuinely believe in her policies. This seems like a lazy form of criticism, because it conveniently protects you from having to actually form arguments against her policies.

Keen to hear your thoughts.

Mefrostate

A UMR poll from mid-2017 showed that 24% of NZers thought we should take less than 750 refugees, 19% felt that 750 was about right, 28% supported raising the max to 1,000, and 22% wanted it increased even further. 6% said don’t know. That’s at least 50% support for increasing the intake. Source

In an Ipsos poll from 2016, 53% wanted no increase in refugee admissions. 54% were confident that most refugees will successfully integrate. Source

$100.000.000 million is better framed as $100 trillion, or about 384 times NZ’s GDP. We actually spend $100 million on refugee-settlement, or about $100,000 per refugee. Source

Kitty Catkin

The idea that anyone would make women dress in blankets and treat them as breeding machines who mustn’t be educated or let outsidecis odd-who on earth WOULD do this ? If you mean Muslims, they do not do this-their families are normal size, the women are seen outside, they don’t wear blankets (?) and if they choose to dress modestly, I pay them the compliment of thinking that they are intelligent beings who can decide for themselves what they wear. There are many Muslim university students and Muslim women in professions. Schools have the scarves in school colours and the girls can wear a long version of the skirt-no problem there. A Muslim girl in Pak & Save (where I see a lot of both Muslim women and Muslim couples) wears a more covered up version of the shop uniform and a black scarf.

No it’s not a ” good idea” Kitty, but let’s be honest everyone in here does it at times.

I am deeply concerned that women’s rights in the west seem to be disintegrating and prudishness and acceptance of limiting opportunities for women taking hold. This is not acceptable to me and I will not sit back and accept that FGM happens in suburban Auckland and women are literally locked up and not allowed to interact with a Westerners or other men.

Educating them to NZ ways. Good luck with that when segregated religious schooling is par for the course in some communities.

Corky

I guess I’m in the wrong 50% demographic. I wonder if a little drowned boy lying on a beach influenced these polls? As for 6% of people who don’t know…they are of the type like the young man recently interviewed who said he had no idea it was Xmas. They need monitoring for life.

Don’t quite get this:

”$100.000.000 million is better framed as $100 trillion, or about 384 times NZ’s GDP.”

Mefrostate

It’s a little hard for me to respond to low-fat arguments like “fluff”, “crap”, and “bullshit”, but I’ll do my best.

“Even though there is a good chance the photo was set up?”

I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that it was staged, beyond the claims of politicians with a motive to lie. For example

“Really. What’s not to know. Give us an example?”

Setting the refugee quota is extremely difficult, as you have to trade-off the tangible costs to taxpayers against a whole raft of subjective aspects such as human rights, values, cultural impacts, participation in the international community, and so-on.

That’s why I respect the 6% who will say ‘Don’t Know’ about changing our quota, especially when the subsequent stats show that most people don’t even know what the current quota is, and that their beliefs about refugee policy might be based on over- or under-estimates of the quota.

I’m pretty well-informed about the subject and I don’t think I could tell you the exact right amount of refugees. Can you? What’s your number, and why?

Bullshit…as usual. Still, not bad for a swollen prostate.

It’s not bullshit. The way you wrote the number made it look like we spend more on refugees than we do, the amount is $100 million for 1000 refugees. Put another way, it costs $20 per NZer to settle 1000 refugees each year.

Corky

”Setting the refugee quota is extremely difficult, as you have to trade-off the tangible costs to taxpayers against a whole raft of subjective aspects such as human rights, values, cultural impacts, participation in the international community, and so-on.ts canvass some of
your points.”

Trump is proving that is not true. Admittedly, in his case with some difficulty.We shouldn’t have any such problems if we would just STOP MAKING AGREEMENTS WITH THE UN. Lets be frank…90% of those people who have a ‘don’t know’ answer to questions are pig ignorant.
There is in reality nothing stopping the government breaking
conventions and just saying.. no more refugees. If Poland and other European nations can do it..so can we

”I’m pretty well-informed about the subject and I don’t think I could tell you the exact right amount of refugees. Can you? What’s your number, and why?”

That reply is why I called your comments bullshit. You must be in the 6 % who don’t know. Thank god the other 94% can form some opinion.
Your comments are also open end and can be interpreted in different ways depending on the answer I give.

My number is zero until will have a workable immigration and refugee plan.

”It’s not bullshit. The way you wrote the number made it look like we spend more on refugees than we do, the amount is $100 million for 1000 refugees. Put another way, it costs $20 per NZer to settle 1000 refugees each year.”

Lol ..more bs. The amount isn’t $100 million for a thousand refugees. Its a 25 million increase on existing refugee expenditure making a 100 million per year, but not taking into account refugees still settling in from previous year quota

Get it right. That’s why I stated we spend over a S100.000.000 million on refugees, but didn’t use per year

Mefrostate

Just to be clear, I meant that determining the refugee quota is extremely difficult if one takes a nuanced approach that trades off tangible & intangible costs & benefits.

If one prefers to cast off these complexities and approach the issue like a Trumpian blunt tool, then I’m sure zero refugees looks like an attractive nail to hammer.

Care to explain to us why you think NZ should take zero refugees? While you’re at it, what do you think about Bangladesh taking half a million refugees this year?

Lol ..more bs. The amount isn’t $100 million for a thousand refugees. Its a 25 million increase on existing refugee expenditure making a 100 million per year, but not taking into account refugees still settling in from previous year quota. Get it right. That’s why I stated we spend over a S100.000.000 million on refugees, but didn’t use per year

Previously it cost us $75 million to take in 750 refugees per year. Since the quota is increasing by 250 refugees, that quota is increasing by $25 million to $100 million per year to take in 1000 refugees per year. So settlement clearly costs $100,000 per refugee, or $0.2 cents for each taxpayer to welcome someone displaced by war, political persecution or natural disaster.

At the rate of $100 million per year it would take NZ exactly one million years to “spend over a S100.000.000 million on refugees”. Speaking of bullshit.

Mefrostate

lurcher1948

Today’s best post up to this point on the rightwing KIWIBLOG gd.PG you would struggle being a moderator on that hate blog…ust saying, as an aside i don’t think Farrar gives a sh*t

Stars And Stripes
Went for a walk on the coast yesterday and given what I saw I would say it’s a miracle that our drowning statistics are not much worst.
A group of coolies in full garb swimming in rough seas, a couple of Orientals standing on a small rock face fishing while large waves were breaking over them and finally some fat ugly blob standing up in a tiny dinghy shouting to his equally ugly wife on shore that he needed more bait and beer.
Makes you proud to be a Kiwi.

Gezza

Coolies & Orientals are poaching Maoris??
Makes a change from their poaching shellfish I suppose, but I wonder what the Fisheries Officers do when they stop a coolie with a car boot full of undersize Maoris?

Kitty Catkin

Gezza

Kitty Catkin

Coolies are unskilled labourers, not just rickshaw drivers. I think that the hats still called coolie hats are a great design-one size fits all, they are shady and light and there’s a space at the top to let air circulate a bit. $2 for this classic design.

Corky

Kitty Catkin

lurcher1948

This person since christmas has called our PM Jacinda Adern a DYKE(lesbian) a muslim, porcelain teeth,a commie,Farrar as i said runs the Mason clinic for distressed right wing hate filled posters,but thank god they cannot get there hands on guns,just saying.

4 days ago … igm. Listening to Newstalk, seems the only thing they are interested in is the unelected Dyke’s Disciple and its Christmas plans. Damn disgraceful. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to those of the right, as those of the left choose to deny the meaning of Christmas. Thumb up 14 Thumb down 9; Log in .

Corky

duperez

Some of the judgemental ones on there with their world views would be funny except for being so sad.
I assume they are adults so that means they are probably models for some of the next generation. Yikes!